The proposed budget does not call for layoffs of municipal employees, but the school department could be facing cuts.
View full sizeEasthampton Mayor Michael A. Tautznik in a file photo.EASTHAMPTON – Mayor Michael A. Tautznik’s proposed fiscal 2012 budget is 2.1 percent higher than this year’s and does not call for layoffs of municipal employees, but the school department could be facing cuts.
The $33.9 million proposal is $684,000 more than fiscal 2011’s budget. The additional funds would come from non-recurring sources like the stabilization fund and the debt exclusion override approved for the new high school.
Property taxes would rise by 2.5 percent, the highest rate allowed by state law.
General government appropriations would rise by $77,844, allowing for step increases in the pay of employees, funding for the city’s elections and a 2012 Bear Fest, the annual city-wide display of painted statues of bears. It would also fund new equipment and upgrades to the Municipal Building and the Public Safety Complex, among other projects.
The public safety budget would rise by $109,817. A new police cruiser and an upgrade to the fire department’s radio equipment are planned, but two vacant positions, a police captain and a fire department deputy, would remain unfilled.
Other areas set for appropriation increases are public works, culture and recreation and employee benefits.
Public schools, however, will take a cut.
Fiscal 2011’s direct appropriation was about $14.8 million and the proposed 2012 figure is about $14.7 million. The School Committee had sought an increase of just under $1.2 million.
“We’ve made a list of potential cuts and we’re in the process now of rectifying the budget we received from the mayor with the expense side of our budget,” said superintendent of schools Nancy Follansbee. She said that staff cuts are unlikely, but positions vacated by retirements would not be filled.
The quality of education in the city, she said, would not suffer.
“We’re doing everything possible to keep the cuts as far away from the instructional core as possible,” she said.
Tautznik said the $14.7 million figure does not include more than $2.75 million in school employee benefits, about $1.7 million in school choice spending or a wide range of other expenses that the school department does not cover itself.
“School choice is a problem we have to absorb,” he said. “The money going in goes directly to the schools, the money going out comes from the general fund.”
School choice brings in only $339,000. The city receives another $151,502 in charter school reimbursements from the state, he said.
“Even though the direct appropriation (to the school department) is down, the total spending is up a little,” he said.
The final education-related expense figure is about $19.79 million, up from fiscal 2011’s $19.77 million.
The proposed budget maintains the four-day work week for most of the city’s administrative personnel and does not provide a cost-of-living wage increase.
There is $310,000 in the stabilization fund, which Tautznik said the city will have to use.
“That’s the rainy day fund. And it’s raining,” he said.
The City Council finance subcommittee will hold hearings about the proposed budget on May 11, 12 and 16, all at 6 p.m. in Conference Room 1 at the Municipal Building. If need be, another hearing will be held May 17 at the same time and place, said city council member-at-large Ronald D. Chateauneuf.